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In light of the loss of Colombia against Brazil in Friday’s World Cup match, I have seen a myriad of Facebook statuses and tweets complaining about the injustice of it all.

Yeah, I was disappointed we lost even though I don’t care about sports that much. But hey, I grew up in Barranquilla where futbol is a big deal and I can’t help getting excited when my team plays (beautifully to boot!) in the World Cup.

Here is the thing people. It is still just a game. It is not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things. While I wouldn’t do what others do to express their passion for soccer, like posting a wall of text in which you pray to God for the team to score a goal, I have no problem with that because to each their own. However, I do think there are far more important things to pray about (On Facebook or otherwise).

But when people post videos like the one below, it makes my blood boil.

Really? Killing the referee? Over a soccer match? In what universe is a human life more important than a stupid sport?

I know some people argue that it’s just a joke, just for fun, blah, blah blah. But this is not an acceptable joke in a country like Colombia. A country that has been plagued with violence for a really long time. A country whose citizens living abroad have to live with the burden of always being reminded of our past with drugs and cartels. A country that has to put up with other countries in the world making fun of our people and insinuating we are all into drugs.

And the worst part? Whenever either of these things happens, we have the audacity to get offended because how dare people make fun of the history of our country? People, we perpetuate the stereotype by making videos like the one above, by filming shows and soap operas about cartels and Escobar and the guerrillas, and by having our national media give so much coverage to all the terrible things that go down in our country. Don’t we have enough crap to deal with as it is?

I love Colombia with all my heart but this is something that we really, really need to work on as a country.